Tag Archives: 8 circuits

Some Circuits of Evolution

Some Circuits of Evolution

By Robert Anton Wilson

 from Critique: A Journal of Conspiracies and Metaphysics
#23/#24, Fall 1986/Winter 1987

The fifth, Neurosomatic Circuit has only appeared sporadically thus far in history and remains latent or only appears in occasion flashes in most humans.  It seems to be located primarily in the right brain hemisphere, with a feedback loop to the genitalia.  (This loop is the origin of the metaphor of kundalini or “serpent power” in system like Tantra, Ophite, Gnosticism and Voodoo).  Training methods to induce the Neurosomatic Circuit to leap into action are known in many yogic and occult schools and include: mediation, pranayama (heavy, rhythmic breathing), cannabis drugs, fasting, prayer and , in many “initiatory” orders a kind of ritualized Shock that may well be a re-imprinting experience.  (All of these Shocks, whether found in tribal shamanism or in systems as sophisticated as Tibetan Tantra, are basically similar in structure to the Shocks of Masonic initiation: the candidate is led through a heavily symbolic ritual to a moment of stunning emotional crises.)

Whereas the reality-tunnels of the first four circuits are linear and mechanical, and build up a strong sense of separateness (hyper-egotism), perception on the fifth circuit is global, non-linear, holistic and tends to blur the previously acute sense of division between Self and World.  At the same time, the conditioned sense of separateness between “mind” and “body” is also blurred or loosened.  The general feeling is one of being “at home in the universe,” “high:” or “floating:” and part of a web that extends far beyond the material organism; the sense of lonely Darwinian:”struggle for survival” is temporarily or permanently abolished. Feud called this “the oceanic experience,” Gurdjieff calls it “the magnetic center,” and in traditional Christian terminology the enlarged self on this circuit is “the new Adam: as distinguished from “the old Adam”, the isolated self formed by the rigid reality-tunnel of the first four circuits.

It seems that art is a neurosomatic circuit function, even though expressed or communicated through third circuit symbols (words in poetry, musical forms, paintings, etc.)  There is hardly any artist who has not recorded mild-to-ecstatic neurosomatic Circuit experiences, usually deepening with age, and most artists frankly attribute the artistic drive to the desire to communicate these “high” moments or “peak experiences.”  The quarrel in our Occidental culture in recent centuries between Art and Science – i.e. between some artists and some scientists – is largely a dispute over the comparative values of third circuit linear analysis and Neurosomatic Circuit holistic apprehension.  The present theory suggests that the full development of the human being involves maximum development of both of these circuits in combination with maximum development of subtlety and flexibility on the other six circuits also.

The Neurogenetic Circuit is even more alien than the Neurosomatic to most conventional scientists.  The names give to this circuit in other systems indeed indicate how strange it seems to those constricted by four-circuit tunnel-realities:  Jung calls it ”the collective unconscious” (although it may become conscious); Theosophy calls it “the akashic records;” Stanislaus Grof has named it “the phylogenetic unconscious;” Buddhism calls it “the treasury mind;” Dr. Rupert Sheldrake has recently named it “the morphogenetic field”.  All of these are regarded by conservative scientists as “mystical” and unscientific concepts, because what they all describe cannot be explained in mechanistic biology.  It seems in 1984 that Sheldrake’s “morphogenetic field” is the best name for what is involved here since Sheldrake frankly admits his “field” cannot be reduced to mechanical laws but operates as a resonance through time.  On this circuit, to be blunt, one seems to have access to the experience of all of one’s ancestors, including those who have been dead for thousands or hundreds of thousand of years.  (Experience of this circuit explains the belief in “reincarnation.”)


Whether or not the Neurogenetic Circuit exists latently in the unconscious of all, as Jung and Grof posit, it only becomes conscious after many years of slowly-increasing Neurosomatic sensitivity, usually accompanied by work in some logic or shamanic discipline.  At this point, consciousness, having become less linear and more global (synergetic), gradually begins to experience depth in time.  The Hindu concept of the Atman or world-soul is then not an idea but a lived experience.  In Dr. Leary’s more modern metaphor, one experiences oneself as a giant robot programmed by the DNA to do specific work in a specific evolutionary niche, and one has increasingly clear “memory” or intuitive understanding of the vectors of the evolutionary drama.  Vast tolerance and a certain Nitezschean amorality blended with Buddhist compassion also appear here:  one sees all other organisms as similar aspects of the “world-soul” or as similar robots programmed by the same evolutionary vector Life Force.  No organism seems “totally wrong” in the sense of conventional Socio-Sexual Circuit “morality,” some organisms merely appear to be mechanical or unconscious of their evolutionary role and potential.


The seventh Metaprogramming Circuit is even more recent, and statistically more rare, than Neurosomatic or Neurogenetic awareness:  one can hardly write about it without being accused of being either a satirist or a mental case.  It consists of the conscious, controlled ability to draw energy out of any previous reality-tunnel and to put that energy into the construction of a new reality-tunnel; that is, to consciously choose which circuits one is operating on and how the information tapped by that circuit will be organized into Gestalts.  This makes possible what theologians fallaciously claim all human beings already possess: the ability to exercise meaningful choice (”free will) and autonomy in the true sense.  This can easily degenerate into megalomania, and in many cases it has, and thus this circuit is not very “safe” unless monitored by great sophistication and subtlety on the other circuits, especially the Semantic (mapping-and-manipulating) circuit.  Talking too frankly about this circuit can also be hazardous to health to most traditional societies, as illustrated by the Sufi dervish, Manur el-Hallaj, who bluntly declared, “I am the truth and there is nothing within my turban but God” and was stoned to death for his “Blasphemy.:”  In general, statements like “I am God” and “I created all this” are inescapable on this circuit, but make severe problems if not balanced by the other circuits and a considerable sense of humor.  This circuit is called Shivadarshana in Hinduism – the dance of Shiva, god of intoxication and death – is also called “crossing the Abyss” in Cabala; that should be sufficient warning of the perils involved.

Concerning the final circuit known in 1984, the Non-Local Quantum Circuit, one must be even more gnomic.  When this circuit is activated, the conventional conditioned-imprinted reality-tunnels called “me” and “my world” are even more expanded than on the 5th, 6th, and 7th circuits; one appears to blend into Something for which most languages have no word.  The Chinese wisely call that Something wu-hsin which means “no mind” and is, perhaps, the class of all minds – which is not itself a mind for the same reason that e.g. the class of all chimneys is not a chimney.  In modern science, the closest approximation to wu-hsinis the Implicate order suggested by quantum physicist Dr. David Bohm; from this Implicate Order are projected non-local forms which create the space-time-mind continuum we normally experience.  It must be stressed that non-local in this context means also non-causal and non-energetic.  If one can imagine a kind of software that co-exists with and is prior to the hardware of the universe, then that is wu-hsin or the Implicate Order.

Accidental entry to this circuit occurs in serious trauma of the sort called “near death” or “clinical death” experience and is then limited to “astral body” or “out-of-body” experiences.  At full intensity, this non-local circuit accesses all the information of the cosmos and experience of it is called Illumination; invocation of the word “God” generally seems at that point a rather small, provincial and human-chauvinist metaphor for what is happening but “union with God” is the only term in the normal vocabulary for such information-rich and non-localized awareness.

We cannot say in 1984 what new circuits are forming or are still potential in the human brain.

It appears that the simple Aristotelian idea that we are either conscious or unconscious (asleep or awake) is inadequate.  We have seen a whole spectrum of consciousness; it seems clear that each level of consciousness opens many possibilities for new reality-tunnels, and that consciousness has evolved, and it is still evolving; we absolutely cannot predict what we might become and what we might know after the next evolutionary leap.  In particular, the seemingly intractable problems of life on this planet – such injustice, exploitation, crime and , above all, war – seem to be maintained by stupidity in the most generally rigid reality-tunnels which prevent further learning or which “hypnotize” us so that we do not see who, where, or what we are doing.  But such mechanical stupidity or Maya, or “sleep-walking” is, in this perspective, an early evolutionary state out of which we are, as individuals and as a species, slowly growing toward higher and higher levels of awareness.

That is, every rigid or dogmatic reality-tunnel is a remnant of our mammalian ancestry.  The earlier circuits are more mechanical; the later circuits are more “voluntary” or self-regulating.  If human life often looks like a spectacle in improperly-wired robots bumping into each other and knocking each other apart, this is because we are not finished as a species; we have the potential of evolving to more subtle and more sensitive functioning.  In contrast to a vast over-simplification by H.G. Wells – who said “Modern history is a race between education and catastrophe” – we can say at this point that modern history is a race between higher consciousness and catastrophe.

We have all lived through the fallout from a vast Neurological Revolution that began with the accidental discovery of LSD in 1943, peaked with the bizarre “drug culture” of the 1960’s and then mutated into dozens of new evolutionary vectors in the 1970;s and early 1980’s.  It’s become known to literally millions of social scientists, physical scientists, artists, writers, and ordinary people that consciousness can be radically altered, that many old reality-tunnels can be outgrown, that many new reality-tunnels can be imprinted and learned, and that the control of our consciousness is increasing in our own hands.  “Whatever can be accomplished by chemical means,” as William S. Burroughs says, “can be accomplished by other means.”  In retrospect, psychedelic drugs were only the initial Shock which our culture needed to being mutating into a new stage of evolution, a state for which we have no word and for which I have suggest the symbol, I2.

I2 means I-observing-I or the mind studying the mind; it also means intelligence studying Intelligence.  On a third level of reference, I2 also means Information2 or the vast information explosion being ushered in by micro-processors and the world-wide electronic network which is creating what Fuller and McLuhan called “a global village.”

Through direct brain stimulation, through Lilly’s isolation tanks, through continuous breakthroughs in organic chemistry and neurology, through scientific investigation of the mechanisms of yoga and Zen, through research into so-called ESP and “out of body experience” (7th and 8th circuit functions) through each advance in computer technology, through research on intelligence-raising drugs and vitaminic compounds, etc. we are learning more and more about how rigid reality-tunnels are imprinted and how expanded and “cosmic” realty-tunnels can be induced.  We are like sleeping beings who are just learning how to wake ourselves up.  In a sense are just discovering that the “missing link” between the ape and True Humanity is ourselves; but we are also learning how to accelerate evolution within our own brains, and how to become what in vanity we once thought we already were: free and responsible beings not limited by mammalian mechanical reflexes.

In a fascinating book on research into longevity, The Conquest of Death, Dr. Alvin Silverstein quotes some impressive figures from the French economist Georges Anderla, showing how the third circuit semantic function has increased our information about the universe since the birth of Christ.  Taking all known scientific facts of 1 A.D. as his unit, Anderla calculated how long it took that amount of information to double. The answer is that it took 1500 years – a millennium and a half.  But the next doubling was much faster, took only 250 years, and was complete by 1750.  The next doubling took only 150 years and was complete by 1900.  The next doubling took only 50 years and was complete by 1950, and the next doubling took only ten years and was complete by 1960.  The next doubling took seven years and was complete by 1967.  Etc. This acceleration is still continuing and some Futurists suggest that knowledge will soon be doubling every year, since microprocessors are accelerating the acceleration.

While we as a species are passing through this “information explosion” which is doubling knowledge each decade at a rate that only occurred in millenniums during the stone Ages, we are also participating in the aforementioned Neurological revolution, whereby we are learning more and more about the functions of the other non-symbolizing circuits of our brain.  To grasp the whole picture of what is now happening, one must think simultaneously of both the Information Explosion and of the Neurological Revolution – of both the new facts being processed and the new potentials of consciousness being explored.

It seems to me now, in 1984, that only rigid and dogmatic (or unconsciously unquestioning) adherence to a narrow atheism or futilitarianism – to what Nietzsche caricatured as Idolization of “least possible effort and greatest possible blunder” – can dismiss as “mere coincidence: this conjunction of rapid information increase and rapid consciousness expansion which I call I2.  It would be the blackest of black jokes if all this sudden coherence, this emerging of new potentials within us, were just the prologue to the final tragedy of nuclear holocaust.  Rather, I suspect it is precisely the evolutionary quantum leap that is demanded of us at this time to bypass and transcend such Doomsday scenarios, to continue the evolutionary ascent to higher and higher levels of awareness, even to levels which we cannot begin to guess or imagine at present.

This article is an edited excerpt reprinted with Permission from a larger article called “How to Tell Your Friends From the Apes” in the aforementioned Magical Blend, a quarterly Magazine (Issue 12)

I, Robot

I, Robot

by Robert Anton Wilson

  from New Libertarian Weekly, July 3, 1977

— Gurdjieff, 1918

Last year in Oui magazine, Dr. Timothy Leary and I published an article ghoulishly titled, “Brainwashing: How to Fold, Spindle, and Mutilate the Human Mind.” I would like to summarize our basic points here, preparatory to a more general discussion of neurological relativism.

Of course, there is nothing new about the robot theory of biology. The Sufis and yogis knew about it centuries before Pavlov, or even before Mark Twain wrote his stunningly prescient essay “Man, A Machine.” Nonetheless, it is so patently offensive to human narcissism that almost everybody recoils from it “as the devil would from holy water.”

(Incidentally, you can get a quick estimate of a person’s intelligence by asking them how much of themselves is robotic. Those who say “not at all” or “less than 50%” are hopeless imbeciles, always. The few who say “about 99%” are worth talking to; they are quite intelligent. Dr. Leary, who is the freest human being I have ever known, estimates that he is 99.9999% robot.)

The circuitry of the human robot, like that of other primates, is wired to take imprints at crucial moments of what ethologists call “imprint vulnerability.” These occur on a pre-programmed schedule; the bio-suvivalimprint is taken as soon as the mother’s breast is offered; the territorial imprint as soon as the infant is able to walk about, yell and generally meddle in family politics; the laryngeal imprint as soon as the DNA-RNA signals trigger the talking stage; the sexual imprint at the first orgasm or mating experience, etc.




Brainwashing consists of creating artificial imprint vulnerability. You can do this either with drugs, or with prolonged isolation (“sensory deprivation”), or with terror (new imprints are always taken at the point of near-death, which is what most shamanic initiations rely on), or with a combination of drugs, isolation and terror.

The priests, pedagogues and shamans of all tribes and nations know enough, on the empirical level, about imprint vulnerability. All the crucial transition stages of life are surrounded by ritual, repetition andredundance – and frequenty with terror and isolation, and sometimes (in many societies) with drugs – to ensure that the local belief systems ans “morals” are heavily imprinted.


Thus, the Samoan lives inside an imprinted Samoan reality; the German inside a German reality; an American inside an American reality. That’s why a crowd of Americans are immediately recognizable in a street full of Turks or Hindus or even in a street of Englishmen or Irish. The naive chauvinism of the traveler who says “all foreigners are crazy” is actually quite valid; indeed, foreigners are crazy; the chauvinist merely lacks the insight to realize that his imprint group is crazy, too.


Leary’s idea of Intelligence-squared thus does not mean merely an increase in linear I.Q. on the third circuit. (Super-Spockism.) It means learning how to “brainwash” yourself; that is, to selectively tune, focus and serially reimprint all 8 circuits, beginning with as many of them as you can handle. (It is unwise, for instance, to attempt any 6th circuit psionic operations until great skill has been attained in self-metaprogrammingthe bio-survival, emotional, mental, sexual and Hedonic circuits.)




Neurologic, Immortality & All That

Neurologic, Immortality & All That

by Robert Anton Wilson

 from Green Egg, Vol. VIII, No 72
Lughnasad, August 1, 1975

Ritual is to the internal sciences what experiment is to the external sciences.   – Timothy Leary PhD

Self-denial is simply the self-expres­sion of self-denying people… Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Or, as Mr. Shaw himself says, the golden rule is that there is no golden rule.   – Aleister Crowley, Gospel According to St. Bernard Shaw 

What is John Guilt?   – Atlanta Hope, Telemaahus Sneezed

Valerie Twilight’s letter in Green Egg VII, 71, raises so many interesting points that the only responsive and responsible an­swer is a new article, not another letter.

Ms. Twilight has some trouble understand­ing the published version of Neurologic; this is not surprising, since Dr. Leary wrote this essay in a hurry, with no re­search sources available, on the floor of a solitary confinement cell, under a 40-watt bulb. A longer (400-page) and much more popularized version of Neurologic was fin­ished shortly before Dr. Leary disappeared last year, but it, alas, disappeared along with him. (If a great scientist had similarly disappeared in Russia, and his greatest book along with him, the liberals would be having the fits, the shits, and the blind staggers about it; but, since it happened in the US, we can be sure that Dr. Leary is cooperating voluntarily with his captors, of course. Of course, of course, of course.)

To Ms. Twilight’s questions:

There are many ways in which the higher circuits can be activated and imprinted. Along with metaprogramming substances such as LSD or peyote, Dr. Leary has discussed (a) certain stressful illnesses, such as schizophrenia and epilepsy, (b) narrow escapes from death, and (c) the empirical techniques developed by shamans and yogis over the past 30,000 years. Judging from anthropological literature, the most widespread device has been the combination of metaprogramming chemicals with (b) narrow escape from death (or some pretense of such narrow escape) to frighten the student into the neural surrender-ecstasy of the death-trip.

The second most common method appears to be deliberate “starving out” or atrophying of the first four circuits. Patanjali’s systemization of yoga, two milleniums ago, had already simplified this to the basic steps of (1) asana the rigid posture which turns off the First Circuit (bio-survival forward-back movement) by ignoring it; (2) pranayama, regulated breathing, which turns off the Second Circuit (emotional domination -submission rituals) by stabilizing the emotional bio-energy; (3) dharana, concentration on one image (or mantra, concentration on one sound) which starves out the Third Circuit (symbolic consciousness, or the “internal monologue”); and (4) yama-niyama, or detachment and celibacy, which starves out the Fourth Circuit (sex-domesticity) by simply dropping out of the reproductive cycle. (An alternative to (4) is Tantra, which mutates the sex-energy directly into higher-circuit energy by what Dr. Leary calls “the delicate Hedonic Engineering” of postponed orgasm.) When the energy of the bioplasm is thus withdrawn from the first four circuits, it has nowhere to go but into the higher circuits.

It is not true, incidentally, that metaprogramming chemicals only turn on the higher circuits temporarily. The actual process seems to follow the equation (written by me, but accepted as a sound expression of his ideas by Dr. Leary):

Bn = Bo + Pn + S

where Bn is new behavior (including new con­sciousness, or new intelligence), Bo is old behavior, Pn is a new program and S is SHOCK in the Gurdjieffian sense, which in the case of metaprogramming chemicals is the chemical itself (and in other cases is the fright or near-death experience used in initiations of most shamanic schools). The most effective new program (Pn) is a ritual, or dramatic performance, which involves the entire neuro-glandular-muscular etc. systems, i.e. the organism-as-a-whole. (The rejection of rit­ual in modern psychotherapy is the chief cause of the ineffectiveness of said therapy. This avoidance represents, in semantic terms, confusing the map with the territory. That is, the “map”–the language–in which ritual has been traditionally discussed is “pre-scientific,” and therefore, modern psycho­therapists, trying to be very “scientific,” have phobically avoided the territory, the rituals themselves.)

An equally effective Pn is the chakra system of Sufism and kundalini yoga, which can be considered an internal ritual. Since there is not so much semantic phobia invol­ved here, many schools of modern psychother­apy have created rough approximations of this ancient science, e.g. Reichian bio-en­ergetic therapies, Gestaltism, Rolfing, etc… When the SHOCK of the metaprogramming chemical is not accompanied by any conscious­ly-chosen P– i.e. when the subject is just “tripping” for the sheer hell of it – the environmental set, whatever it is, provides an unintentional Pn. Lack of understanding of this point has given the metaprogramming chemicals an inaccurate reputation for “un­predictability.” Intelligently used, they are more predictable than any other behavior-modifying technology of the past 30,000 years; which is why so many shamans have used them.

Turning now to the question of immortal­ity, it is of course true that Circuit 4 (sex-reproduction) already provides basic genetic immortality. (The first 3 circuits have to do with survival in space; circuit 4 transmits the genetic code through time. This is why Nobel Prize geneticist Herbert Muller once joked, quite profoundly, that we are giant robots created by DNA to make more DNA.) On Circuit 7, basic neurogenetic con­sciousness, we tap directly into the DNA-RNA dialogue and experience that 3½-billion year old genetic mind which is the meaning of Pan, Brahma, the World Spirit, etc. This “collective memory” is the origin of the reincar­nation metaphor, probably.

The new immortality, or immortality2, becoming rapidly available in the next 10-15 years as genetic engineering advances, will confront each human with the option of new 8-circuit survival as an entity (for the first time in history). Many, like Ms. Twi­light, will undoubtedly choose the tradition­al path. There is nothing wrong with that at all. Evolution proceeds, always, through diversity, not through uniformity. The point is that, when this choice and the oth­er options of genetic engineering become available, humanity will cease to exist as an entity. There will be several human stocks, one of which will almost certainly choose the Maximum Trip, i.e. total reprogramming for higher intelligence, greater emotional equilibrium, continuous high-circuit ecstasy, immortality, eternal youth and beauty, cos­mic exploration, and (probably) eventual Circuit 8 fusion into the (hypothesized) Galactic Mind, made up of all races, galaxy-wide, who have chosen the Maximum Trip and are evolving toward Perfection, i.e. Cosmic Godhood.

The three main human stocks, Dr. Leary predicts, will be the Maximum Trippers or time-travelers, as discussed above, and (2) the planetary colonists, who will evolve in various ways on various planets, all of them divergent from the Earth-norm, as local gra­vitational and other fields determine, and (3) the stay-at-homes, who will probably ev­olve toward some variety of insectoid socia­lism (since that is about the only way the oncoming world-round Technocracy can be man­aged).

More concretely and immediately, the on­coming biological revolution will provide options, for the first time in history, on whether or not to continue such phenomena as idiocy, imbecility, various chronic diseases, the general emotional plague and mental in­stability of larval humanity, ugliness, crippling, deformity, etc. Once again, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. The existence of the option does not mean that anybody must choose beauty and health and immortality etc.; those who really pref­er the old ways must have the freedom to retain personal ugliness and sickness and death, etc. Diversity is the path of evolution.

In terms of DT. Leary’s famous Two Commandments for the neurological age:

1. Thou shalt not alter the consciousness of thy neighbor without his or her consent.


Like Dr. Leary, I personally prefer the Maximum Trip, i.e. serial reincarnation (through neural re-imprinting) within one time-traveling starship until eventual Cos­mic Fusion is reached. Again, like Or. Leary, I do not see any need to preach or harangue about the matter. The future evo­lution of humanity must be self-selecting. Those who are going to the stars, are going; those who are staying behind, are staying behind. The job of the neurologician is to make the options available, as quickly as possible, before the present Circuit 2 programs, as escalated and accelerated by tech­nology, wipe out humanity entirely.

Attachment to the Earth-womb is rein­forced on each of the first four circuits, where the bonds are made to mother or mother -substitute (Circuit 1 security), to father or father-substitute (Circuit 2 power), to tribal lore or academic regulations (Circuit 3 knowledge) and to one’s own family and offspring (Circuit 4 responsibility).

On the higher circuits, there are higher bonds. Specifically, the massive opening-activation of Circuit 5 rapture in the 1960s (the first historical occasion of millions of illuminations in one decade) partially misfired because the appropriate bond, to a Tantric partner, was imperfectly understood. (In the Tarot symbology, many remained Hanged Men and did not achieve the bonding of the Temperance-Art card’s alchemical fusion.)

Circuit 6, being increasingly activated in the 1970s, is the shamanic circuit  per se, and coded into the Tarot by the cards known as The Devil, The Tower, and The Star. That is, the opening of the circuit (Devil card) is the initial awareness of alien intelli­gences above and (in a sense) within us, ac­tivating every possible paranoia (cf. Colin Wilson’s Mind Parasites); the brain or Ges­talt of the circuit (Tower card) totally fissions and wipes out existing terracentric imprints (classic Samadhi); and the ultimate bonding (Star card) is when the alien pres­ences are recognized as our Galactic Par­ents who have secretly loved and nurtured us all along.

Dr. Jacques Vallee’s new book, The In­visible College, suggests (on the basis of data obtained by feeding UFO contactee stor­ies and traditional religious visions into computers and comparing the two) that Circ­uit 6 awareness always contains the Devil archetype at first, i.e. the fear of the un­known Superior Mind, the dread of “possess­ion,” etc. It is this aspect of the oncoming Gestalt (not neural re-imprinting, gene­tic engineering for immortality and ecstasy, or starflight itself) which will cause the most terror, paranoia, flip-outs and “cont­roversy.” The ruling classes, in particular; cannot constitutionally accept Powers and Intelligences higher than themselves without acute schizoid fugue.

Most people, however, are part of one ruling class or another. That is, they act as authoritarians to those “below” them, even while they act as submissive robots to those “above” them. The opening of the 6th Circuit will, therefore, cause even more panic than the opening of the 5th circuit in the 1960s. This is why it is important for those who understand, more or less, what is happening in genetics, neurology, molecular biology, parapsychology, etc. to communicate as much as possible about this transforma­tion from terrestrial mortality to cosmic immortality. To repeat: it is not necess­ary to preach, since the process remains self-selecting, but it is necessary to explain. The average larval human can only relate to Higher Intelligence with terror, as in the archetypes of the Elders of Zion, Illuminati, Secret Chiefs, invaders-from Mars, etc. The recognition that Higher In­telligence is continually active on this planet will blow many fuses before most hu­mans can see these entities as, in Don Juan’s phrase, “allies.”

In fact, the chief reason that Dr. Leary has been jailed, gagged and held incommuni­cado is that the local authorities under­stand his ideas just well enough to feel threatened, not well enough to accept that the Next Step in evolution (as Crowley and the Sufis call it) is as inevitable, and as self-selecting, as all the previous steps.

Finally, to answer a question Ms. Twi­light didn’t ask, how fast is this metamor­phosis happening? Well, C.P. Snow has said that the biological revolution of this decade will be more profound than the revolu­tion in physics in the decade of Hiroshima (1940s). Rattray Taylor’s Biological Time Bomb predicts that changes more basic than the invention of fire or the wheel will occur by 1980. The foremost molecular biolo­gist known to me is about to unleash a re­port on his latest research, about the same time this article will appear in print, that vastly exceeds the “wildly optimistic” fore­cast given by Leary and Benner in Terra II (1973). Nobody reading this sentence must die; you will have the choice. All the work of Timothy Leary personally, and of myself and my associates in the DNA Society collectively, amounts to no more than pro­viding a scientific-mythic scenario to give depth and context to your decision. As the Christians have been saying (prematurely) for 2000 years, the question of where to spend eternity is in your hands.